How a democratic movement is challenging Pakistan’s status quo.

30 Years of Archives

Silence by sanction

Illustration: Marcin Bondarowicz

Photojournalist and activist Shahidul Alam was picked up by the Bangladeshi law enforcement earlier this week over remarks made on Facebook about the government crackdown on protesting students in Dhaka. Alam continues to be in custody under Section 57 (2) of the controversial Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Act, a legislation that has attracted widespread criticism over its draconian nature. The act has been used to detain over 20 journalists in the recent past for, among other things, social media posts and comments critical of the government. Over the years, similar laws have been enforced in other countries of Southasia, with authorities abusing the provisions of these often hurriedly and arbitrarily passed laws to clamp down on any dissent.

From our Archive:

Stateless in Assam

On 30 July 2018, the final draft of National Register of Citizens (NRC) of India’s northeastern state of Assam was released, which left out around four million people living in the state, potentially stripping them of their citizenship rights. The NRC, compiled over a period five years at a staggering cost of INR 12.2 billion (USD 177.9 million), comprises only those who were able to prove they were in Assam before 1971, when Bangladesh became independent.

From our Archive:

Whither Saarc?

Ever since Saarc was founded in 1985, it has been shadowed by the rocky relationships between two of its largest members – India and Pakistan. Other members have also affected scheduled Saarc summits, citing domestic reasons or a rocky relationship with either Pakistan or India. Probably, this is the first time that four members – India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan – have decided to boycott the Saarc summit, to be held in Islamabad, Pakistan between 9-10 November 2016. Despite existing as a collaborative platform for Southasian nations for 32 years and after 18 Saarc summits, the regional organisation has achieved little beyond empty rhetoric. Our archival articles trace its history and complexities that has hindered true regional cooperation under its aegis.

This is not the first time a Saarc summit has become the ‘collateral damage’ in the on-going and relentless rivalry between India and Pakistan. Dip into our archives to understand how petty politics have impacted Saarc and its mandate to promote regional cooperation over the decades.

Shangri-La’s dark spot

Bhutan, often referred to as “Shangri-la” by the western world has a gory past – it once forced over 75,000 Nepali-speaking people, the Lhotshampas, to leave. They languished in refugee camps in eastern Nepal for over 20 years as protracted talks between Nepal and Bhutan never reached a solution. Meanwhile, their population increased and their difficulties multiplied. Finally, the US and several other Western nations, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands, started resettling them in their own countries. This week, the 90,000th refugee resettled in the US. However Bhutan was never held responsible for the genocidal eviction of about 15 percent of the country’s population, which amounts to a ‘crime against humanity’. About 15,000 refugees are still living in two camps in Nepal and are faced with an uncertain future.

Meanwhile, in response to a letter from the US Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Bhutan’s Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay has ruled out any possibility of repatriation. Premier Tobgay has also ruled out the possibility of allowing refugees to return and reunite with their families still living in Bhutan. While the international media was happy to treat Bhutan as the country with the alternate development model of ‘Gross National Happiness’, Himal Southasian pursued this issue with in-depth reporting.

Turbulent times in Maldives

The recent BBC report about the plot to overthrow Maldivian President Yameen Abdul Gayoom; and the Al-Jazeera documentary that exposed the corruption engineered by the President and many of his aides, including members of the judiciary and police, has revealed the actual state of affairs in this island country.

The pressure on President Yameen to resign is mounting. Meanwhile, Mohammad Nasheed, the first democratically elected President, who was ousted in a bloodless coup in 2012 and who has now taken asylum in the UK, hopes to bolster the opposition to the corrupt government in power and make a comeback. Selected articles from our archives over 20 years reveal the contours of the troubled history that haunts the Maldives and makes it vulnerable to corruption at the highest level of office.